20 tips to better photograph children

During these unsettling times I hope that you are keeping healthy and safe. I am sure many of you are at home, taking care of your children and home schooling them. It is HARD work! But it is also an opportunity to spend more time together and to capture some meaningful photograph of your family. Below I have set out some useful points which may interest you when taking photos of your children. 

1. Get down to their level. Our world perspective is based at our height. Children photos, from our height appear mostly with a huge head and a tiny body. When you lower down to their level, not only will this give them a more proportionate look but you will also show their surroundings from their point of view. 

2. Pay attention to the focus. They move - you chase. Try to focus on their eyes, where the viewer will naturally look

3. Shoot every day moments. Children change so quickly, as do their activities and the daily actions that we do with them. Soon things will change and we might regret not snapping a photo of one of the thousand diaper changes we did, or breastfeeding, or those messy first meals. You will treasure all of these moments when you look back at them.

4. Get the children used to the camera. You don’t want them to look surprised once you get the camera out and they become all distracted. This should be easy if you are simply using your phone. 

5. Show your eyes. Make sure your eyes or your face are visible when taking the photo. This way the children can connect with you rather than the camera. There are also little soft toy gadgets you can stick on top of the camera to gain the children's attention or use some bells or soft toys for noise. 

6. Use continuous mode on the phone so that you capture different expressions, movements. On most phones and cameras you just keep the trigger pressed or put the camera in sport mode. 

7. Use a fast shutter speed on a camera to freeze the image and avoid blurry photos. If you have a Speed priority or Manual mode in the camera, pick anything faster that 1/500th of a second and go up the range, 1/1000, 1/4000 etc. 

8. Photograph from above I know before I mentioned to photograph the children at their level, however a whole scene from above can give a totally new perspective and tell a story. Get up high and enjoy a new view.

9. Use accessories Hats, glasses, big t-shirts, anything goofy and funny.

10. Crop. Don’t be afraid to zoom in and crop the image.

11 .Focus on some body part. Hands or feet, new discoveries, great gestures and activities that children do with their hands. I love the little chubby hands learning to grab object, learning to wave hello and playing with some food! 

12. Choose a simple background. In order to reduce the annoyance of a busy background, choose something simple behind that will lead the viewer’s eye to the subject. 

13. They do not need to be smiling. There are so many other expressions to remember and to capture. Sadness, surprise… they will give more variety to the images. 

14. Capture two stories in one image a child is occupied and totally focused while another person or group is doing something else. It is a good principle of storytelling and as a photographer you can use a wider view to achieve this. 

15.Use a tripod and timer to capture the whole family. I know, mom or dad, generally one of the parents never exists in photographs because is always behind the camera. Make sure to include everyone or you will have years without photos of you with the children. Of course selfies are fine too but with more time available those tripods can come out! 

16. Just take it! Sometimes even if the quality is low and you only have your old phone at hand, taking the shot is better than not! No one will really care about the quality of the image, unless you plan to print really large.

17. Grab some selfies with your children. You need to be in some of the photos too to tell the story! If you cannot use the timer, the good old arm-selfie-stick is always available!

18.Shoot without the face. If you are concerned about privacy but still want to post something, there are so many ‘anonymous’ pictures you can take, not showing the child’s face, photographed from behind, focused more on the objective or direction of the child. 

19. Use an object for size reference. As the children grow up, it is nice to visually see their size difference compared with the same toy or another object. 

20. Don’t get them tired. Photograph for a bit and then move on, let them play or get distracted. You do not want to bore them or they will show it.

Good luck! Enjoy it and get a little silly with it all! 

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